Ugh the past 48 hours have been interesting, in the ancient Chinese proverb sense.

Aidan caught the superflu that’s been (apparently) going around. And yes, both he and Gwen got a flu shot. He started throwing up Thursday afternoon, and that lasted well beyond midnight. Diarrhoea too. No one got a lot of sleep. We tried keeping him in bed with us so that if he threw up while sleeping, we’d know it. That didn’t work (it never works with Aidan) and we ended up putting him back in his bed at some ungodly hour.

Yesterday was a bit better … Gwen was able to get him to eat some solids and drink a little bit, but not nearly enough. Plus he developed a fever. He slept from 4 til a little after 7 and when he woke up, he took some fluids and applesauce … and then tossed them up again.

It was at this point that I consulted the BC Health Guide and then called the BC Nurseline. 10 minutes on hold, 10 minutes talking to a nurse. Decision: the boy was exhibiting enough signs of dehydration that we should take him into the emerg.

So, we packed everyone up (iPod, DSes, etc) and headed to what I *knew* was going to be a busy ER at BC Children’s. And it didn’t disappoint either. We arrived at about 8:15 pm had a quick (10 s) assessment by the triage nurse and then waited an hour before being properly triaged. The triage nurse gave us some Pedialyte to try to start rehydrating him (15 ml every 5 minutes) but Aidan, as stubborn as ever, absolutely refused to take any of it. After triage, I went to move the car from the 60 min in-front-of-emerg parking to the ‘long term’ parking lot. And when I got back, Gwen and Aidan were gone. I thought that they had disappeared into a bathroom, but it turns out they were taken to an assessment room. Apparently the triage placed us at a higher priority than the other 6 kids with flu that we watched get triaged ahead of us. It certainly surprised me.

We saw the attending shortly after that. What a really nice doctor. Don’t remember his name, but he had a great way with Aidan. The doctor made his own assessment, and got the nurse to give Aidan another dose of Tylenol (we’d been trying to keep him dosed, but he kept throwing it back up) and some sort of super-anti-nauseant. This was a tab that dissolved in Aidan’s mouth pretty much instantaneously. He wasn’t happy about it, but by this time didn’t have a lot of strength to fight too much. The plan was to take the anti-nauseant, wait 30 min, and then try again to introduce liquids to him. It ended up that we waited over an hour before being seen again.

But, the medicine stayed down, and when we started introducing liquids to him, he was 1) taking it, and 2) keeping it down. We didn’t get a lot into him, after another 30 minutes, the doctor was satisfied that Aidan had recovered enough to send us home. Tried Aidan on some Gatorade when we got home, but he was so tired and irritated about getting liquids forced into him that we didn’t take a lot.

So, it’s morning now. Aidan’s not up yet, but if he doesn’t take more liquids or continues throwing up, then we’ve got instructions to head back to the ER. On the plus side, it looks like he didn’t throw up overnight, so maybe we’re out of the woods.

Oh what fun. Did I mention the doctor says he’s contagious — of course, we knew that.

This week I started to sit for Gen as she went back to work. Tristan has been very good and there haven’t been too many tears. Both he and Aidan have been napping but just not at the same time. They have been playing together quite well with not too many fights. I even think that Tristan will stop stalking the cats soon. The only thing that I have been worried about for a long time is the naps.

Naps are my down time. The time I get to do the really decadent things in my life. You know those things that make you life much more comfortable. Yes, I am talking about getting something to eat, a decent cup of tea, and the most decadent of all . . . I get to go to the bathroom . . . BY MYSELF!!!!!! So you must be guessing that the last two days might have been a little, . . . well (sigh) tiring. Yes I must admit that I was incredibly tired last night. So tired that I told Anthony the choice for dinner was either he or I go and get Wendy’s. (He didn’t complain.)

Of course all this was made much more difficult because Aidan had to go and get himself a head cold. This meant that Monday night he was up every hour wanting to be breastfed to clear his nose. Last night we gave in and I also bought a warm humidifier and Dimetap infant drops for stuffy nose. And guess what, Aidan slept till 4:00 am. (Good thing Anthony and I went to bed at 9:00 pm.) It took us a while to get him back to sleep and I was all to happy to dose him again.

This morning when Tristan came he had decided to also get the cold and kept his parents up all last night as well. At least it made both the boys tired. I took them out to play in the playground and brought them back for lunch. Gen came and put Tristan down for his nap and when she left I fed Aidan to sleep.

So, now they are both in the same room and asleep at the same time. And what do I do? Do I get the time to do the decadent thing as mentioned above. No I blog. :) Excuse me while I go to the bathroom. Alone. (Woo Hoo!!!!!!)